2025 Oscar Nominations: The Snubs, Surprises, History, Stats and More

The 2025 Oscar nominations are here and with them come the shocking snubs, the big surprises and history made with record-breaking stats, trivia and more.

Let’s start with some of the records and context set today, where Emilia Pérez finds itself at the forefront.

Best Actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Pérez) is the first out trans actor to be nominated for an Oscar.

Emilia Pérez sets the record for most nominations for a non-English language film at 13. Previous record holders, with 10 nominations each, were Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Roma (2018).

Jacques Audiard, nominated for Directing and Original Song for Emilia Pérez, becomes only the third person to be nominated in both the Directing and Original Song categories, and the first to do so for the same film. Leo McCarey (Directing: 1937, 1944, 1945; Song: 1957) and Spike Jonze (Directing: 1999; Song: 2013) received their nominations in separate years.

Emilia Pérez and I’m Still Here are the 10th and 11th non-English language films to be nominated for both International Feature Film and Best Picture in the same year. Each of the previous films (Z, 1969; Life Is Beautiful, 1998; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 2000; Amour, 2012; Roma, 2018; Parasite, 2019; Drive My Car, 2021; All Quiet on the Western Front, 2022; The Zone of Interest, 2023) won for International Feature Film. To date, Parasite is the only film to also win Best Picture.

The 13 nominations for Emilia Pérez is the second most for any film ever, tying Gone with the Wind (BP winner), From Here to Eternity (BP winner), Mary Poppins, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Forrest Gump (BP winner), Shakespeare in Love (BP winner), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Chicago (BP winner), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Shape of Water (BP winner) and Oppenheimer (BP winner).

Best Picture nominations for Emilia Pérez and Wicked mark the first time two musicals have been nominated in the category since 1968 (Oliver! and Funny Girl were two of the five nominated films that year).

Three acting nominations are for non-English language performances: Karla Sofía Gascón and Zoe Saldaña in Emilia Pérez, and Fernanda Torres in I’m Still Here. In eight of the last 10 years, at least one non-English language performance has been nominated in the acting categories.

While last year saw the first time that two non-English language films were nominated in Best Picture, this is the first year that both were also nominated for International Feature Film as well.

Karla Sofía Gascón is only the second Spanish actress to be Oscar-nominated after Penélope Cruz.

France (Emilia Pérez) continues to add to its record number of nominations for International Feature Film with its 39th nomination (Italy is second with 30 nominations). This is the country’s first nomination here since 2019’s Les Misérables. France has the second-most wins in this category (12, behind Italy’s 14) but hasn’t won since 1992’s Indochine.

Keeping on the French theme, Coralie Fargeat’s nomination for The Substance is the 10th Directing nomination ever for a woman. She follows fellow countrywoman Justine Triet, who was nominated last year for Anatomy of a Fall. They are the only women to earn directing nods without a corresponding DGA nomination first.

This is only the second time two French directors have been nominated for best director in the same year. The first time was 1974 with Francois Truffaut (Day for Night) and Roman Polanski (Chinatown).

For the sixth consecutive year, at least one film nominated for Best Picture has been directed by a woman.

For the first time in 47 years, all Best Actress nominees come from films nominated for Best Picture.

Cynthia Erivo is the first Black British actress to receive more than one nomination and is the 5th Black actress to receive multiple nominations in acting categories, joining Americans Whoopi Goldberg, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer and Angela Bassett.

Fernanda Montenegro and Fernanda Torres joins Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli as the only mother-daughter nominated for Best Actress.

I’m Still Here is the first film since The Blind Side, second since Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and third since All That Jazz (1979) to earn a Best Picture nomination without any of the following: Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture, Critics Choice nomination for Best Picture, PGA nomination, BAFTA nomination for Best Film or a Best Picture win from any of the six major critics groups (NYFCC, LAFCA, NSFC, BSFC, CCA, NBR). – credit, Eric Beck in the comments

It is also the first non-English language film to earn a Best Picture nomination without a writing nomination since Grand Illusion in 1938. – credit, Eric Beck in the comments

This is the first time since 1997 that all directing nominees (Jacques Audiard, Sean Baker, Brady Corbet, Coralie Fargeat, James Mangold) are first-timers.

In the acting categories, 13 individuals are first-time nominees (Monica Barbaro, Yura Borisov, Kieran Culkin, Karla Sofía Gascón, Ariana Grande, Mikey Madison, Demi Moore, Guy Pearce, Isabella Rossellini, Zoe Saldaña, Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Fernanda Torres). Colman Domingo is the only acting nominee who was also nominated last year. Adrien Brody is a previous acting winner.

At 29 years old, Timothée Chalamet is the youngest two-time Best Actor nominee since James Dean, who was 24 by the time he reached back-to-back posthumous nominations for 1955’s East of Eden and 1956’s Giant after he died in a car crash. Prior to Dean, the only other actor in their 20s to earn two nominations in Best Actor was Mickey Rooney, who was nominated at 19 for the 1939 Busby Berkeley musical Babes in Arms, and then four years later at 23 for The Human Comedy.

Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice) becomes the first person to receive an Oscar nomination for portraying a president who is currently in office, which technically only happened because the nomination announcement was pushed until after Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Edward Berger (Conclave) joins Baz Luhrmann as directors who have missed out on Best Director nominations despite two films with 8+ nominations.

This is the only third time after 2022 (Elvis, All Quiet on the Western Front) and 1963 (Cleopatra, How the West Was Won) that two films (Wicked, Conclave) have earned eight or more nods in the same year without a director nomination. – credit, Eric Beck in the comments

Wicked is the first film since Dreamgirls (2006) to earn eight nominations without directing or writing, the first since The Poseidon Adventure 1972 to earn more than eight nominations without director or writing nods and the first ever to reach 10 nomination without either. – credit, Eric Beck in the comments

Yura Borisov (Anora) is the first Russian actor nominated since Lila Kedrova in 1964’s Zorba the Greek.

Diane Warren, Original Song nominee for “The Journey” from The Six Triple Eight, is nominated for the eighth year in a row, bringing her total nominations in the category to 16 (tying with Paul Francis Webster, and behind Johnny Mercer at 18 and Sammy Cahn at 26). She received an Honorary Award in 2022.

For the fifth year in a row, a non-English language song has been nominated in the Original Song category.

Sound mixer Andy Nelson (Wicked) has a record 25 nominations in the combined Sound categories and is second only to John Williams (with 54) for the most nominations for a living person.

Flow becomes the third animated film to be nominated for International Feature Film (Waltz with Bashir, 2008; Flee, 2021) and the second animated film to be nominated for both Animated Feature Film and International Feature Film (Flee, 2021).

Chris Sanders ties the record for most nominations for Animated Feature Film with his fourth nomination in the category (tying Pete Docter and Hayao Miyazaki).

Eric Nyari is only the fifth individual to be nominated for both Documentary Feature Film (Black Box Diaries) and
Documentary Short Film (Instruments of a Beating Heart) in the same year. The last person to accomplish this was Charles Guggenheim in 1994.

Let’s talk about the morning’s biggest snubs and surprises. The identification of a snub or a surprise is obviously in the eye of the beholder, or the predictor as it were, but are based on perceived chances of getting a nomination going in, be it a precursor run or other factors.

SNUB: Marianne Jean-Baptiste – Hard Truths

Despite coming in with the critics’ trifecta of LAFCA/NYFCC/NSFC and a BAFTA nomination, Jean-Baptiste’s misanthropic Pansy in Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths was shut out, mirroring the Sally Hawkins snub for Leigh’s 2008 film Happy-Go-Lucky. In this case though, the writers branch, which usually loves Leigh, snubbed him as well. As I wrote in my prediction piece for Best Actress, while Jean-Baptiste was one of the most celebrated performances of the year, voters (and audiences) rarely give women the same leeway for ‘unlikeable’ characters the way they do with men. While anecdotal conversations with voters can prove to be fruitless on a larger scale, the male voters who commented that they disliked Pansy as a character became the quiet majority and Jean-Baptiste’s return to a nomination nearly 30 years after Secrets & Lies was snuffed out.

SNUB: Jamie Lee Curtis – The Last Showgirl (Best Supporting Actress)

Jamie Lee Curtis earned SAG and BAFTA nominations for her work in The Last Showgirl and seemed on her way to a traditional post-Oscar win afterglow nomination but the Academy stopped her at the door.

SNUB: Daniel Craig – Queer (Best Actor)

After starring in two massively successful franchises – James Bond and Knives Out – Craig set his sights on more cerebral material with Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ surrealist gay fever dream, but even with Critics Choice, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations under his belt, the Academy said no.

SNUB: A-listers.

There’s something interesting in that for a long time it’s been said that ‘we’ aren’t creating new stars but at least in terms of the Oscars, the rebuke of major A-listers and Oscar winners like Angelina Jolie (Maria), Nicole Kidman (Babygirl), Denzel Washington (Gladiator II) and Kate Winslet (Lee) says that at least voters are looking to something outside of that bubble and not, in the added stress of the Los Angeles fires during voting, not simply name-checking.

SNUB: Sex

Did the Academy suddenly get taken over by sex-fearing Gen Zers? Eroticism and sex were back in a big way this season with Babygirl, Challengers and Queer and they were all completely shut out this morning, despite Oscar-winning and nominated pedigrees behind them. It wasn’t an issue with them for Anora though, the sex worker dramedy full of nudity, sex and voyeurism, although often for comedic value. Last year’s Poor Things didn’t suffer either.

SNUB: Challengers

A contender in four categories – Original Screenplay, Original Score and Original Song – the Academy said no Oscar winners Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for the latter two and the symbiosis of back-to-back wife and husband screenplay nominations for Justin Kuritzkes and Past Lives’ Celine Song. Editors, which usually like the fast cuts of sports films also passed.

SURPRISE: I’m Still Here in Best Picture

While Fernanda Torres’ Best Actress nomination and the film’s nod for Brazil in International Feature Film, Sony Pictures Classics rode the post-Golden Globes wave all the way to a Best Picture nomination for the film.

SURPRISE: Monica Barbaro – A Complete Unknown (Best Supporting Actress)

While Barbaro definitely had several predictors on her side, coming in as, well, a complete unknown, and with only a SAG nomination, was going to be an uphill battle. The last actress to do that here was Ruby Dee in 2007’s American Gangster. But Barbaro’s film peaked at exactly the right time with guilds and likely the extended Oscar voting.

SURPRISE: Wicked in Film Editing and Score

While the blockbuster musical hit a massive 10 nominations, landing one for film editing over more heavily predicted titles like A Complete Unknown, September 5 and Challengers. Landing a nomination in score, even qualifying, was truly defying gravity.

SURPRISE and SNUB: The Wild Robot

The animated film earned expected nods in animated feature and score but was surprisingly not on the list for original song but on it for sound. It’s the first animated film to hit the sound category post-merge of sound editing and sound mixing since 2020’s Soul.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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